285. Out of Dust

D.F. Karaka wrote a book called Out of Dust long ago. He was an ICS officer who came under the spell of the Mahatma. The theme of the book was the Mahatma made us into men picking us up from out of the dust. That is what Mahatmas do. Only that Mahatma Gandhiji did it in the lives of thousands of men of character who gave up their homes, education, profession, and wealth to serve the nation. The book was written during the lifetime of Gandhiji. The Spirit has the capacity of that alchemy.

The Spirit does so many things, maybe anything conceivable or inconceivable. My perennial theme is can the Spirit bring about the transmutation of POVERTY into PROSPERITY? If my answer is yes, how many will find my formula intelligible or further acceptable? Whether the poverty of a nation can thus be eliminated or changed into Prosperity is a question that I constantly hold before me. Long ago when India was prosperous we know she lived truthfully upholding her age-old dharma given to her by the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddha, Krishna, Shankara and a host of other great souls. The West became enormously prosperous by hard work, overseas trade, scientific discoveries, socially productive organisation and various valuable values of punctuality, self-respect, integrity, cleanliness, political awareness, etc. Are we going to develop all of these or either of these sets of lifestyles overnight? Is it a dream of the incapable? Even without the Spirit in the picture, over a hundred countries have taken full advantage of technologies as well as organisational techniques and have become twenty times or forty times more prosperous than us. It is imperative that we take to those technologies. Add Spirit to that in any form and you will see centuries shrinking into decades. Spirit does not mean religion, festivals, rituals, etc. Spirit means the spirit of life, spirit of work, spirit of ideas and the SPIRIT of man to progress endlessly till he reaches his coveted goal.

Man always has a choice before him. One is to flow with the stream and reach the goal at the end of a long journey. The other is to swim upstream and reach the goal quickly. The common man does not readily respond to the difficult choice. But NOW a boat has come to take anyone who cares to avail of the boat. It is the descending Spirit that almost envelops one. He who knows of its presence and avails of its help will travel the difficult path easily. Will he respond? Would he endeavour to call in the Spirit?